


Magpies

by Laura_Sinele



Series: Fictober 2019 drabbles [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Developing Friendships, Fictober 2019, Friends to Lovers, Gay Draco Malfoy, Gay Male Character, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Death, Mentions of War, Mild Language, Pansexual Character, Pansexual Harry Potter, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-11-23 21:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20896214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura_Sinele/pseuds/Laura_Sinele
Summary: Draco Malfoy has been in house arrest and under reconditioning regime for the last seven years. Eventually, his motherly assigned auror counselor is substituted by Harry Potter.





	1. I know you didn't ask for this

**Author's Note:**

> Written for de Fictober19 prompt #4: "I know you didn't asked for this".
> 
> Edit 11/oct/2019
> 
> Chapter 2 based off Fictober19 prompt #8: "Can you stay?"
> 
> I've tagged this Friends to Lovers instead of the usual with these two Enemies to Friends to Lovers because they start anew in the first chapter, 7 years after Hogwarts.

Outside the window a couple of magpies were fighting over an apple, effectively distracting him from his reading. Not that he was very focused to begin with. One of the birds had picked a rotten apple from the orchard ground and the other was trying to steal it. They cawed angrily and flopped their wings in ampulous, threatening motions while clashing talons. Draco was engrossed by their belligerent dance, open book forgotten on his lap.

The hinges of the reading room door screeched as it opened. All the elfs in the Manor had left to work at Hogwarts or the Ministry immediately after Draco informed them of that possibility, so there was no one left to oil the joints nor announce visitors. Not that there was any need. The only visits he got regularly were Ministry’s agents on Ministry’s business or his designated/volunteered auror, checking weekly on the conditions to his house arrest. Mother wasn’t allowed to leave St. Mungo’s and his aunt Andromeda, who was trying to forge a family bond with him, was always sensible enough to owl before coming. By the works of the DMLE, the doors and floo system would not open for anybody else. 

Aware of this at all times, Draco didn’t pause his keen observation of the magpies’ strife. It was Friday after all, and Auror Appleworm made always her appearence on that day at the time of her best convenience.

“I would have prepared lunch for us both, had you come half an hour earlier”, said Draco as he rose and put the book aside, still looking out the window.

“Thank you Malfoy, I’ve already eaten”. 

Malfoy startled at the male voice, and then startled again when he realised who it belonged to. He turned slowly, disbelieving, his aristocratic training supplying a small surge of nonchalance thanks to which he managed to pocket his hands and look calm. 

“Excuse my surprise, I was expecting Mrs Appleworm, as usual. To what do I owe the pleasure, Potter?”

Harry remained near the door, politely waiting for an invitation to sit. His auror robes were impeccable, their maroon bringing back to Draco’s memory their quidditch matches.

“Mrs Appleworm’s daughter went in labor this early morning. She is going to take some months away, although we are trying to convince her to retire and enjoy her grandchildren. Septuplets”, he added at Draco’s curious expression. 

“Oh, my. I thought she wasn’t due until next month. I trust they are all healthy and well”

Harry nodded, “I paid a visit on my way here. They are all well and Agnes and Mr Appleworm are over the moon”.

“I’ll have to remember to send them a present”. 

An awkward silence settled between them while Draco reigned his nerves and Harry looked around the room, taking in the elaborate shelf-cases, the light upholstery and drapes, and the yellow wallpaper. It was nothing as he remembered the Manor. 

“I made some changes”, offered Draco, guessing Harry’s train of thought. “Now that I am the only inhabitant I figured I could make this house, eh, more welcoming. Please, do sit down”, he finished gesturing towards the armchair next to his, by the other side of the window. “And please excuse my manners earlier, I was caught in two magpies fighting over a piece of apple in mid flight right outside the window”

Harry looked perplexed at that confession and a small smile graced his face while he approached the window. 

“They don’t look like fighting now”, he said as he spotted them through the window, resting atop of an ornamental stone cornucopia, grooming each other. 

Draco followed Harry’s pointing finger and he couldn’t contain a delighted exclamation upon finding the two birds. 

“They must have learnt to share, then. Now, what can I do for you, Auror Potter?”  
\--

They fell in a comfortable routine. Every Friday at precisely 2 o’clock, Harry appareted outside the reading room door and knocked before entering. Draco would put aside whatever book he had picked from the list the Ministry had provided as one of the conditions to keep him out of Azkaban and, after the compulsory questions and tests, they’d settle in an easy conversation that could go on until dinner time. Draco would always politely extend an invitation to stay and Harry would always politely refuse. They’d talk about quidditch, muggle culture —a big part of Draco’s assigned readings—, recent news, what were the Manor’s elfs up to…

Over time, more than seven years if he wasn’t mistaken, Draco had struck a sort of friendship with Mrs Appleworm. He had started to forgive himself for his acts of war and his past arrogance upon learning how she saw him. A veteran auror and elderly mother, when she looked at Draco Malfoy she saw an abused child never too rotten to mend. Draco might not think as benevolently about himself yet, but he was willing to get there someday, which was a huge step forward from the self-deprecating, self-harming depressive state Agnes Appleworm found him in. This days he barely indulged in regret and sadness and fear. He stayed firmly attached to calm and apathy. 

After five weeks of Mrs Appleworm leave, eagerness joined those two main emotions. Draco found himself eager for Friday afternoon well early in the week, and Saturdays and Sundays were usually filled with a peaceful sensation akin to happiness. It felt good to face Potter once a week for a few hours. It gave his before and after a certain continuity. They never talked about school or the war, not even a passing mention, but the fact that Harry Potter existed, and acknowledged Draco’s existence, made all the memories and every movement away from them and past his prior ways, somehow more real.  
That afternoon, however, Harry’s dark mood was all over the place, making it impossible for Draco not to ask if everything was alright. 

“I’m sorry, it’s nothing important. I just had a tough session with my therapist last evening”, said Harry with an apologetic smile. 

“A therapist? Like a muggle psychotherapist?”, Draco couldn’t refrain to ask, surprised as he was. Harry scoffed.

“A muggle psychotherapist, actually, yes”. 

Draco made a very polite, very English face of understanding and promptly looked through the window in search of and urgent change of topic, for he could not possibly fathom a non-personal, prim and proper way to continue this conversation. Providence delivered in the form of two magpies landing on the windowsill. 

"Oh!", softly exclaimed Draco, inexplicably delighted. "Would you look at that!" 

"Are they the same two?" 

"I couldn't tell…"

Both young men fell silent, watching the birds. They had landed side by side with a fraction of a second between them. They had looked around with that avian sort of movement that made most corvids look offended, and then started to skip all along the windowsill, apparently without purpose but very pointedly ignoring each other. 

After a while, Draco could not take the ominous feeling that scene had sparked in him, and turned to Harry, who was still transfixed by the magpies' bizarre dance. 

"Should I ask? About your therapy". 

Harry smiled as if he had been expecting the question, and didn't say anything nor looked away from the birds for a little while. 

"Why, Malfoy, what would you ask?", inquired Harry, finally looking at him with a placid expression, devoid of any hostility Draco might have anticipated. At this, Draco shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly and gave a spontaneous response that seemed to be aching to be spoken.

“What is it for. Although I can imagine. How is it going. Or whether it helps or not”. After a very brief pause he added: “How are you”. 

Harry laughed softly, throwing his head backwards. He covered his face with his hands and sighed. 

“I am fucked”, he declared meeting Draco’s gaze. “I’m a child soldier with PTSD, abandonment issues, identity issues and claustrophobia. I’m an abuse victim and have a deep distrust towards any authority figure. This, added to my natural tendency to bend rules results in ‘severe misanthropy and incapability to work within a hierarchy’”, he said, signing in the air the quotation marks before dropping his hands on his lap with mild frustration. “Every fatherly figure I ever had aside from Hagrid and Arthur Weasley is dead. All my friends are war heroes with similar issues, so we barely talk about normal stuff. So to avoid feeding each other’s neurosis we barely talk, full stop. My adopted family was so invested in actually making me one of them that they unconsciously pushed a relationship that ended up feeling unsettling close to incest and finished awkwardly and dramatically, distancing me from them. Oh, and right when a single month had passed without the press pestering me, tomorrow the Prophet is going to be all about me being queer because the guy I met at a muggle gay pub last Friday happened to be a squib, and he knew exactly who I was. So, uh, yeah. I’m fucked”.

Draco’s eyes were wide in shock and concern. He hadn’t known what to expect when he had enunciated the hypothetical questions he would make, but he was pretty sure he’d have been shook even if he had imagined the half of what Harry had just said. 

“I am deeply sorry, Potter. I shouldn’t have brought the subject up”.

“I wouldn’t have told you if I hadn’t wanted to”.

“Nevertheless, it is none of my business”.

Harry scoffed, this time a tad irritated. When he spoke it was patent that he was trying to refrain from lashing out completely onto Malfoy:

“How is this not your business? My psychopathic tutors certainly aren’t, but all the rest? My parents’ death? Voldemort’s return? The war? You were a part of it ever since you were born!”. Draco only managed to mouth like a fish, watching as Harry grew more and more indignant. “You conspired and helped to set on the battle at Hogwarts. At a bloody school!”, he boomed now. “You put a cursed necklace on a student! You let the Deatheaters into the castle! You were a bloody little soldier just like I was!”.

Draco rose from his seat, trembling with rage and shame: 

“I didn’t have a choice, Potter! I was born into it! I didn’t ask for any of it. I didn’t ask for this!”

From his armchair, Harry was looking up at him, at first with defiance. Upon hearing this, watching Draco looming over him, eyes wet and breathing deeply, his features softened. 

“I know you didn’t ask for this. It was uncalled for. I am on edge since I knew about the Prophet, but that’s not an excuse. I am very sorry for yelling at you and bringing up the past. For the record, I think you’ve already done more than enough to repay your debts and change your ways”. 

Draco was still staring, still looming, still breathing heavily and holding back his tears with all his power. He stood there for a few beats, and then he sat back down slowly, not taking his eyes off of Harry. A few moments of silence elongated between them, faces flustered, bodies tense, eyes locked. Finally, Draco relaxed into the backrest and spoke calmly:

“I never knew you were mistreated as a child. It’s an abomination”.

“I never knew you would be learning about muggle culture willingly”. 

“It’s part of my sentence”.

“Hermione told me you wrote her like six feet of an apology letter and asked for books, music and films”, shot back Harry with a mischievous grin. Draco rolled his eyes, mocking annoyance:

“You can’t keep secrets anymore”.

“Not between Hermione, Ron and I, no”.

They smiled at each other with something warmer than the pleasant politeness that had grown between them during the past weeks. Harry broke eye contact first to look out the window. Draco kept looking at Harry, letting the list of his presumed flaws sink in. They both spoke at the same time: 

“The magpies are gone”.

“Did they know?”.

Harry looked at him, seeming at loss.

“Sorry, who knew what?”.

“The new head of Muggle Relations and her husband. About you being queer”.

Harry avoided Draco’s eyes and bit his lower lip. 

“No they didn’t. If I don’t tell them today, they’ll find out tomorrow and they’ll be pissed I didn’t tell them. Luna Lovegood was the only one that knew besides my therapist. We had a one night stand some years ago. In the afterglow we were talking about this and that and I told her I liked guys. She said that people is people no matter what they pack, and love is love. Honestly we were high and I’m derailing. You’re the third person I tell this and I’m not getting any good at it”. 

Draco smirked. He rested his elbow on the armrest and his face atop his open palm, his little finger tracing the corner of his smile.

“I used to think I was asexual. Many honorable wizards were by birth or choice. Something to do with amplifying magic with your ‘life drive’”. Harry stifled a laugh and Draco smiled wider. “I used to think I’d marry Pansy Parkinson, or Millicent Bullstrode or one of the Greengrasses, force myself to produce one single heir and dedicate my life to study potions and being a socialite. Then I saw Cedric Diggory on a broom”.

Harry gaped, completely pleased with this piece of gossip, and maybe also with the fact that he and Draco Malfoy were talking about Hogwarts and it was not a sensible topic.

“Cedric whispered in my ear that I should bath with one of the clues for the Triwizard Tournament and I still get the chills when I recall it”. 

“He was stupidly handsome”, murmured Draco looking away, suddenly aware of the cause of Cedric’s death. “And stupidly brave. Like you”. He looked back at Harry just in time to notice he was flustered. He told himself it was because they’d been talking about Cedric. 

“I have to go soon. I have owls to send”, stammered Harry standing up to take his cloak and leave. Draco stood to see him out.

By the door they stopped and looked at each other, not knowing exactly what to do. In the end Draco offered his hand and said:

“Thank you. For telling me all that. And acknowledging that I’ve changed. And volunteering to be my counselor. I know nobody else beside Agnes was willing to come here and not beating me up”. 

Harry ignored Draco’s hand, his earnest look of gladness invading all of Draco’s range of sight. He pressed his lips together and dove for a hug. It was a tight, deliberate embrace, oozing sincerity and the true, deep affection that only likeness invokes. Draco wrapped his arms loosely around Harry, completely dazed by such gesture.

“Thanks to you”, whispered Harry on Draco’s ear. “For trying, getting there, and leveling me all the way up to here”. He stepped away and out the door, and a muted snap confirmed that he was gone until next Friday.

Draco stood there, the chills running through his spine.


	2. Can you stay?

Next Friday came and went, and many others. Mrs Appleworm sent an owl with chocolates, a picture with her grandchildren and a couple of lines of motherly advice. Draco sent a selection of herbs from his grounds with instructions to brew a reconstituent potion for the breastfeeding mother, and some books on the magic of identical siblings. Andromeda visited with Teddy. Mother managed to write a couple of letters, her calligraphy improving slightly. Life went on like it had been usual for the past seven years. Except for Fridays. 

Harry brought Halloween candy and pumpkin juice. Draco made some sandwiches and tea, and they sat by the fireplace and went about the motions of every Friday’s paperwork and control spells.

“There’s only two more years of this. How do you feel about it?”, asked Harry.

“I don’t feel anything special about it”, answered Draco calmly.

“You don’t? Don’t you want the house arrest to end? Don’t you have plans for when it does?”.

“I’m rotten rich and a wizard. I could just lay around for the next one hundred years and there would still be plenty for Teddy to inherit”, he said as he trapped a chocolate frog and popped it in his mouth.

Harry scoffed, amused. 

“Between the Malfoy, the Potter and the Black fortunes, Teddy is going to be able to buy Hogwarts”.

“I hope he does. Even at 8, he doesn’t strike like the kind of person to set mortal traps for children”.

“Wow. Did you just roasted Dumbledore?”, laughed Harry.

“I will never not roast Dumbledore. He was wise and powerful but he was completely nuts. Not as in Death Eater nuts or Voldemort nuts, but he was too chaotic to be in charge of children”.

After a brief silence, Harry admitted: 

“That’s what I’m working on in therapy. Well, one of the things I’m working on. To be able to blame Dumbledore”.

Draco perked up. After that first time with the magpies skipping along the windowsill, Harry hadn’t mentioned his therapy or Hogwarts. Draco waited for him to open up more, watching him sit in the puffy armchair across the coffee table cramped with candy wrappers and crumbs, eyes set stubbornly on the flames in the hearth. The clocks around the house started to chime. It was five in the afternoon, the time in which Harry usually took his leave, but he wasn’t moving. Nor talking. 

“How can a muggle therapist handle that?”, dared to ask Draco in the softest voice he could muster.

“Her daughter is a witch”, explained Harry. “She’s in 5th year now, a Slytherin, by the way. When they found out what had happened in the wizarding world before they entered it, my therapist talked to the Headmistress, who introduced her to Hermione, and they devised a program to combine magical healing with psychotherapy. Obviously, I was their first guinea pig, because why wouldn’t I, right?”. Harry laughed at his own joke and Draco gave him a supportive smile. “Anyway, it’s been three years. It helps but it goes slowly”.

Draco nodded, projecting more understanding than he really was capable of. He had read about therapists. Had heard the word in pop songs and seen them in movies. But he knew close to nothing about psychotherapy and it never occurred to him he might need it. Up until Harry spoke again:

“She was appalled by the war and the fact that most of the people involved in the last decisive battle were basically children like me and you. She still can’t come to terms with the fact that I died and came back to life, and…”

“I am sorry, Potter, what?!”

Harry was caught by surprise. That made Draco realise that information was probably public domain and pretty much old news, which failed to soften the blow.

“You… I thought your mother would have told you. She was there and she lied for me so I could kill Voldemort. I explained it at her trial, I thought…”

“Well Potter, I wasn’t there. The Wizengamot considered that, while I was old enough to be treated as an adult before the law, I was too young to attend my own mother’s trial”.

Draco tried to keep his voice calm, but he was trembling, and steam started to rise again from the cold teacup he was nursing. Harry managed to babble an apology before being interrupted with Draco’s distressed, non-believing words.

“I’m sorry, I…”

“Nobody told me! And they don’t let me get the Prophet, I get a curated selection of articles where every reference about the war is redacted! I had no idea you died!”.

“But, why does it matter so much to you?!”

“Because!”, bellowed Draco right before the teacup exploded. He was breathing heavily, cheeks aflame, and made no motion to clean the mess up, nor any sign of feeling the burnt of the boiling water. 

It took a beat for Harry to react and vanish the spill and the shattered china shards. He stood up from his seat and went to kneel in front of Draco, to level his line of sight. With his hands half risen and palms facing outwards he gave Draco an inquisitive look before touching his forearms and thighs, spreading a cooling, healing charm wandlessly and wordlessly. A show of power Draco barely registered, too busy trying to even his breathing. 

“Are you alright?”, asked Harry softly after a while. Draco nodded. “Why were you so upset, Malfoy?”.

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t”, he insisted at Harry’s skeptical look. 

“Okay then. I think the clocks already struck five, so it’s time for me to go. Will you be okay?”

“Yes, yes, of course Potter. I’ll be fine, don’t you worry”, said Draco, spreading politeness and deference over his words. “Plus, it is Halloween. There must be a party somewhere waiting for you”.

“Actually I told everyone I had a cold”, he admitted, winking mischievously. “I just wanted to spend a quiet night without much ado”. Draco smiled, understanding even though solitude was his everyday life. “I guess I’ll go now. Don’t break any more Malfoy heirlooms while I’m gone”. 

Draco nodded him goodbye and closed his eyes, focusing on Harry’s steps on the carpet, the beating of his own heart, the swept of the robes being lifted from the chair where they had been resting, more steps, his heart accelerating. 

“Potter!”, he said. And it sounded first year Malfoy in the Great Hall, third year Malfoy across the grounds of Hogwarts, sixth year Malfoy in the second floor girl’s bathroom.

The sound of steps reaching a halt and feet turning around, robes swishing. 

“Yes?”, asked Potter. It sounded like anything Draco had heard before. 

“Can you stay?”


	3. Can you wait for me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Fictober19 prompt 27: Can you wait for me

Draco pointed his wand to the ceiling and shot green and silver sparks. He chuckled and rolled to lay on his side, facing Harry.

“That’s about it”.

“Wait, you can’t  _ Accio  _ things? Or even cast a small jinx if you need to defend yourself?”. Harry was laying face down on the mountain of throw pillows they had gathered by the fireplace, and he propped himself up on his elbows while he talked. Draco accidentally blew a raspberry trying to stifle a laugh. Their raiding of the Manor’s cellar had proven to be a great idea. 

“Nope. But I can make sparks!”, he said with great excitement before bursting into laughter yet once more. Harry, however, was deeply concerned by the fact, and he showed it profusely, as only drunks can show concern.

“No, no, no”, he said grabbing and shaking Draco’s shoulder. “Don’t laugh! It’s terrible! You can’t do shit!”.

Draco almost choked from laughing so hard.

“You’re so pissed!  _ And  _ pissed!”. He kept laughing with renewed strength.

“Mate, you can’t even FLY!”

“What? Of course I can’t fly, Potter! I’m under house arrest!”

Harry blinked slowly. Draco’s words eventually reached his inebriated brain, he snorted and collapsed onto his face, cackling along with Draco. When the fit of laughter subsided, Draco wiped a mirthful tear from the corner of his eye, sighed and said:

“Seriously though, I don’t really miss it. Almost every basic charm is allowed and most of the self-care and survival spells too, so I can get chores done and keep myself healthy and safe. And entertained”, he chuckled as he produced some more coloured sparks. “Sometimes I wish I could shrink something, or levitate bigger things. Or  _ Accio  _ stuff I’m not really sure where in this dastardly big house is sitting. But it’s not as if I’ll ever use many more spells when the arrest is lifted”.

“What would you like to do then?”

“I haven’t thought about it for a long while now. At first it was all I could think of. I thought it would help me stay sane. I thought about investment, maybe involving muggle stock options. Investment was the family business when we weren’t consorting with genocidal madmen. That, and politics but I can’t do that for obvious reasons. Then my father died and I decided I’ll stay away of anything he ever did. I considered art, but I suck at muggle techniques and when I try to paint, dance or compose magically, it all turns into dark, depressing stuff”.

“Yeah”, said Harry sympathetically. “Hermione told me that happens when you go through a major trauma by dark magic”.

Draco nodded and inadvertently adopted a more serious, almost academical tone.

“Exactly. There is a lot of literature about it”, he said waving his hand to the shelves, packed with books and scrolls. Harry had learned those were only the ones Draco wanted to keep at hand, and somewhere in the manor there was an immense library. “That led me to consider a career in healing, specifically treating this kind of trauma. I always was good at potions and–”

“Well, you got good grades but…”

“I’ve already told I’m good at it, it wasn’t because of Severus favoritism so drop it already you moron”, said Draco without real bite. Harry rose his hands in mock-surrender, wearing a toothy grin. “Good. The thing is I’ve been thinking about all this again since you first mentioned your therapist. I’m trying to find more information and see if there is a way to make healing charms, healing potions and muggle psychiatry work together, because magical healing has always disregarded mental and emotional problems. But it’s just, you know… Something to keep myself busy. I don’t think the Ministry would consider seriously anything I suggested”.

Harry looked earnestly impressed, to the point of needing a couple of seconds to give an articulated reply.

“That’s… That’s actually a great idea. I could talk to Hermione and Martha, my therapist. I’m sure they’d be interested. It would mean taking their program one step further to reach the whole magical community. They could help you in your research and back you up before the Ministry”.

Draco scoffed.

“Oh, come on, Potter. It’s not as if I can propose a bill while serving my sentence.”

“Actually, I don’t think there is any law against that”, replied Harry, appearing to Draco full of conviction and somehow eager for him to jump into it. He felt equally endeared and unsettled. He felt fear of disappointing someone for the first time since the end of the war.

“I don’t know”, he said non-commitantly. “I’ll think about it. What about you, what are your prospects in life?”, he asked impulsively, out of desire to change the subject and move the attention away from him.

Gradually coming down from his drunkenness, Harry huffed at that and made himself comfortable on the scattered pillows, rearranging them absentmindedly while he contemplated his answer.

“Truth is, I don’t really think about it either. I mean, I’m not trying to play the victim in front of someone who is deprived of his freedom...”, Harry said dramatically. Draco kicked him playfully as he groaned “Oh, fuck off”, and waited for him to talk seriously with a snarky smile on his face. “Well, my life before school was shit. I was sort of an elf. A very mistreated one. I had no way to know things could get better and, when they did, all the ‘Boy who lived’ bullshit came crashing down on me. I never really had time to think about it properly. I sort of followed the logical path. I don’t love it, though. It gets frustrating and repetitive. Hermione suggested teaching Defense. Ron says I should have gone pro at quidditch”.

“You were good, that’s a fact”, Draco conceded. Then, before he could catch himself, a belly full of chocolate, sugar and wine, and a brain addled by several hours of lounging by the fire got the best of him, speaking his thoughts out loud: “And you looked so fit”. He immediately slapped his mouth shut, but Harry was already prepared to taunt him, eyes shining with mischief and a wide open smile.

“No bloody way! You liked me?”

“Shut up!”

“Never! You, always so posh and entitled, liked me, a walking disaster! This is hilarious!”

“It’s not!”, exclaimed Draco. It came out muffled because he was covering his beet red face.

“I thought you said you were into Cedric. Is it some kind of kink? Like a seeker kink?”

Draco sent an onslaught of blind slaps in Harry’s direction.

“Would you just shut it, Potter!”

“Not in a million years! This is gold, Malfoy!”. 

Draco pouted comedically. 

“Aw, alright, don’t be upset”, said Harry between giggles as he held Draco close, rubbing soothing circles on his back. “If it makes you feel better, I had a small crush/massive hate thing going on about you”.

Draco stiffened almost imperceptibly, but Harry noticed it because he had stiffened to upon hearing his own words and realising what their current position was. They remained silent a long while, neither of them moving, listening to each other’s hearts beating wildly with shock and something akin to expectation. Finally Draco pushed lightly back and Harry parted his arms so he could move. They were looking at each other now, not much more than two inches apart. Draco was the first to break the silence.

“Either if I ask you this or not, I think I will regret it forever. So I’m going to go ahead and do it, if that’s alright.” Harry nodded, Draco took a deep breath. “Would it be wrong if I kissed you right now?”

Harry remained silent, looking into Draco’s eyes totally transfixed. He took such a long time to react that Draco was about to panic, but he finally let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding, rested his forehead on Draco’s and closed his eyes. 

“Please, do kiss me, I’d like that very much”, he whispered. 

“Okay”, mumbled Draco, and he closed the distance between their lips, only to stop in the last beat by a hitch in Harry’s breath.

“We can’t”, said Harry. He sounded angry and defeated. “I’m an auror and you are a convict”.

“I think you’ll agree with me in that we are so much more than that”, replied Draco softly.

“I do, but even if you consent to it, there are wards against this. I’d be forcibly removed from here and wouldn’t be able to come and see you for the rest of your penance”. Draco closed his eyes and channeled his present frustration in one long exhale, nestling his head under Harry’s chin. Harry tightened his embrace. “I’ll wait if you do”, he said feebly, bracing himself fo Draco to say it was just a stupid teenage crush rekindled by drinking and fishing out memories. But Draco, pressed against his chest, snorted. 

“I’ve got nothing else to do other than wait, and waiting for you is far more enticing than my current prospects. But you?”, he asked as he backed a little and found Harry’s gaze. “Saviour of the Wizarding Britain, most powerful wizard alive and most eligible bachelor of our generation. Can  _ you  _ wait for  _ me _ ?”.

He wasn’t demanding for Harry to wait. He wasn’t doubting his word either. He was just kindly offering him a way out, which Harry refused. He held Draco tightly and buried his head in the crook of his neck, inhaling deeply as Draco’s hands found their way up to his shoulder blades.

“Let’s just pause this. I’ll keep coming for counselling. I’ll keep pretending I don’t notice you’re low key flirting with me, and I’ll keep low key flirting back. I’ll keep watching you grow and heal, and I’ll keep growing and healing myself. I’ll keep treasuring our friendship that I would have never seen coming. Two years from now, when the house arrest is lifted, ask me again”.

  
  
  



	4. Scared, me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Fictober19 prompt 31: "Scared, me?"

Agnes Appleworm arrived early that morning. She had been granted special permission to visit the Manor once a month after leaving Draco’s case and the Ministry. She came bearing homemade food and cleaning spells for the reading room, in which things were going to happen that afternoon. The Thing, actually. The formal procedure of lifting the house arrest and making Draco Malfoy a free man once again. 

After lunch, she wrapped Draco in a tight embrace. Despite Draco’s above average height, Agnes was still a good foot taller than him, this contributing to her tendency to mother every person she met, no matter their age or background. Draco had to admit he owed her his sanity because of that. 

“You’ve done great, love. I am very proud of you”

“It was all thanks to you, Agnes”

She made a conspiratory face.

“Well, I wouldn’t take the merit off Harry now, would I?”

Draco rolled his eyes and Mrs Appleworm burst out laughing good-humoredly.

“Potter’s been around for the last two years, you were the one who did the heavy lifting”

Mrs Appleworm looked at Draco with a tender smile, hands on his shoulders. She gave him a noisy kiss on the cheek and arranged his hair.

“I have to go now. Do come to visit, you’re always welcome”

“Thank you, Agnes. For everything, I mean it”

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand and walked off, waving right before appareting away.

Draco was just turning his back to the open door of the reading room and vanishing the lunch dishes away when a series of whipping noises told him the Ministry officers had arrived. He turned around to greet them but he found himself freezed by the sight of several photographers, a wireless reporter, two writers, Minister Shacklebot, Hermione Granger with Martha O’Sea attached to her arm, four aurors, an unspeakable, a healer and a clerk from the Wizengamot. And no sign of Harry Potter. 

Hermione and Martha approached him first, used to the Manor after months of working with Draco in their magical mental health proposal, and eager to greet him in such an eventful date. Then the Minister, not before having the aurors position the journalist and warn them against any wrong-footed move towards their host. Draco was mildly shocked, since nobody told him there would be press, and somebody did tell him he was going to be there and wasn’t. Hermione stood on her toes to whisper in Draco’s ear:

“I know you don’t like this, but we need to make a good impression if we want the bill to be approved. Relax, it’ll be over in a minute”.

Draco exhaled and nodded, eyes closed in resignation. There was a speech about the war, and memory and reconstruction. Then Hermione and Martha talked about their work, emphasizing Draco’s help. Draco answered a few expectedly uncomfortable questions, but nobody was a prick to him, following the Minister’s demands. Hermione was wrong: it took way longer than a minute, and it felt forever. Finally, the healer gave him a quick check, the clerk produced the paperwork and many pictures were taken of him and the Minister signing his release and probation, shaking hands, and taking a copy of the magical mind healing project’s first draft with great ceremony. 

Draco felt all the wards and inhibition spells fall, and the Manor’s ancient magic stretch out and reach to the furthest corners of its grounds. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to contain all his magical energy pleading to shoot fireworks from his fingertips, to fly, to explode and set things on cold green fire, like a gigantic puppy after too much time locked in the kennel. 

The Minister shook his hand and gave him an earnest smile before asking if using his floo was okay. The press left on his wake, and so did the aurors, and Hermione and Martha after setting a work meeting at the Ministry. Just like that he was alone again, in his reading room, door closed, not a living soul in the house. The magical thrumming inside him was now just a pleasant vibration all over his body, and now that he wasn’t overwhelmed by it, he was free to wonder where on earth was Harry. 

He looked at his feet, sighed through his nose and told himself he should have seen it coming. There was nothing now that would make Harry come back. He wasn’t bound by his job anymore, and so he was able to avoid him. After all, they had never talked again about that Halloween night. Nothing else, not even a handshake, had happened between them. And yet Draco thought they at least were friends now.

This nine years had taught him nothing if not acceptance. You can’t make someone stay against their will, so be it. He shook the disappointment away and picked a book from his to read pile. A fantasy muggle novel, since Martha and Hermione had him overworking on the draft the weeks prior his release and he was done with medical and magical theory. He sat on his favourite armchair, by the window, trying to avoid the memory of all the Friday afternoons, and sometimes evenings, in which Harry sat opposite him. 

Not many pages in the world of a mysterious and undoubtedly hot witch-hunter, the window beside him rattled, making him jump. Outside, perched on the windowsill, a magpie held his gaze with human-like annoyance. Amused, Draco opened the window and the bird flew in, cawing impatiently at Draco from the seat in front of him, jumping on one leg, with a rolled note tied in the other. 

_ Wasn’t allowed to join the party. I’m at the front door. Wards won’t let me in. Guess they’re back to how they were before the war. Lift them for me? H. J. P. _

Draco smiled softly and then he found he could not stop it. With his smile turned a wide grin, he flicked his wand to let Harry in and went to meet him at the entrance hall. When he got there, he was panting slightly, but the sight of a fidgeting Harry in civilian clothes, holding a bunch of books, a bouquet of white roses and a box of chocolates took his breath away. Still, he managed to play it aristocratically cool. He stopped on his tracks, straightened his pose and put his hands in his pockets. 

“Afternoon, Potter. May I ask what are all those for?”, he greeted calmly, pointing at the presents with his chin. 

“Well, I’ve been meaning to give the guy I like some sort of present, as in a first date, because we haven’t had one. One proper date, I mean. But I couldn’t decide between any of these books, because he loves to read, or the chocolates, because he does love chocolates, or the roses because I felt like an idiot passing by the florist every friday on my way to see him and thinking white roses remind me of him, but not getting the nerve to give him a bouquet just because. So here we are”. 

“Here we are”, repeated Draco with the stupid, unstoppable smile back on his face. 

Harry sighed and looked around, as if inspiration was going to appear there any minute. He was smiling too, albeit shyly, and kept changing his weight from one foot to the other. 

“So”, he mumbled, “I believe we’ve got a conversation on pause”.

Draco looked at his feet. When he looked up, Harry was a couple of steps closer, offering him the bouquet as if he was offering a token of peace to a dragon. Draco took them carefully, smelled them, and summoned a jar with water and a small side table where he set them. 

“Your hands are trembling”, pointed Draco taking the books and the chocolate and putting them next to the roses. “Scared, Potter?”

Harry laughed, fully aware this wasn’t the first time Draco had made that question. This time, though, the taunt in it wasn’t irritating. It felt like feathers up his breastbone. He closed the distance between them, his eyes set on Draco’s. He took Draco’s face between his hands and Draco, breathing heavily, put his arms around Harry, resting his hands in the middle of his back. 

“Scared, me?”, said Harry, voice trembling. “Go ahead, you were asking something”.

“I’m impressed by your good memory”, said Draco coolly. 

“I haven’t thought of anything else in the last two years”, he breathed. 

With a smirk, noses already touching, eyes hooded and brisk heartbeats, Draco whispered:

“Would it be wrong if I kissed you right now?” 


End file.
